The conference will bring together practitioners, researchers and key figures in the field of Further Education (FE) and will cover a range of themes from apprenticeships and work-based learning to accountability and governance in FE.

In keeping with the event’s title, 'Reimagining Further Education', the conference format is designed to maximise opportunities for collaboration and interaction amongst all those present.

Instead of the conventional ‘stand and deliver’ format of many conferences, 'Reimagining Further Education' will be organised as group conversations framed and facilitated by a discussant and chair for each of the 6 thematic strands included. By exploring positive, imaginative and creative ways forward that enhance agency, workforce development and the professional ethos of all FE practitioners, this conference aims to put the ‘confer’ back into conference!

Safer Care Conference

30 June 2016, 8.30am-4.45pm, City South Campus

Promoting research on safer care: by health professionals, centred on patients

The Safer Care Conference, now in its third year, aims to promote the conduct of research by nurses and allied health professionals for the betterment of care delivery. Among friends, you can begin or enhance your budding research journey by making use of the afternoon workshops on a range of topics pertinent to the success of research conducted by the aspiring clinical researcher.

We question the barriers, overcome the problems and understand the processes of research and we hope delegates leave feeling animated and energised about their own research. The morning offers an opportunity to hear the inspiring experiences of clinical researchers who have been in the very place you are and who have successfully navigated the research landscape, improved our fundamental knowledge, enhanced care and all whilst maintaining clinical posts.

4 - 28 May 2016, Parkside Gallery

Established in 1986 by Dave Travis and Steve Coxon, The Click Club was the name of a concert venue and disco associated with Birmingham’s alternative music culture.

Located in ‘Burberries’ – a conventional nightclub site in the pre-regeneration city centre, the club showcased a wide variety of acts reflecting the varied culture of the independent and alternative sector.

While capacity was limited to a few hundred attendees on any one night, The Click Club was important locally, nationally and internationally, for the role it played as part of a touring circuit, and for distributors and retailers of independent music. As a central feature in a music scene operating on a DIY-basis, independent of major labels, at the intersection of subcultures it also had enormous cultural value for its participants.

Travis continues to be a key cultural entrepreneur. Known initially as a professional photographer, commissioned by music publications such as NME, Sounds and the local Brumbeat amongst others, he has combined his photographic work with the promotion of live music in the city.

This exhibition draws upon Travis’ personal archive of film, posters, magazines and ephemera that detail a vibrant and dynamic space and time in late 80s Birmingham.

Central to the exhibition is a set of previously unseen images taken by Travis at The Click Club, a small proportion of those produced during a professional life as a music promoter and photographer.

The exhibition draws upon first hand accounts of those who were there and includes loaned artefacts in order to contextualize The Click Club in a historical moment that remains important to its community and to the music and cultural heritage of Birmingham.

The exhibition poses a series of questions: what is the value of this material? What does it tell us beyond confirming the memories of the individuals it concerned? Does such material have wider importance and contributions to make to our understanding of the past?

While the exhibition will appeal to those who attended The Click Club as well as those curious about popular music more generally, it is aimed at a broader audience interested in history, urban life, everyday creativity and the cultural economy.

Attendees will have the opportunity to win some of the prints on display by offering feedback on the themes and substance of the exhibition – watch this space!

Conceived and curated by scholars from the Birmingham Centre for Media and Cultural Research Paul Long, Jez Collins (founder of Birmingham Music Archive), and Sarah Raine, the exhibitiondevelops themes from BCMCR research clusters in Popular Music Studies and History, Heritage and Archives.

100 years of tear gas: militarisation, protests and the legacies of war - panel discussion

This panel will bring together academics, activists and experts to discuss the military, policing, legal, commercial and medical aspects of tear gas, both in historic and more contemporary contexts. First used in 1914, tear gas is a legacy of WWI, developed as a chemical weapon for military use, then misleadingly rebranded as a "non-lethal" weapon used to repress social protests around the world.

We will also explore how citizens have developed DIY gas mask instructions and home remedies, circulated transnationally in print and online, allowing for new kinds of ad-hoc “amateur practices” to emerge (i.e citizen journalists, citizen scientists, citizen lawyers).

Neil Corney - Omega Research FoundationNeil researches and writes on a wide variety of military, security and police issues, including the testing and trade of 'less lethal' weapons, and the human rights and health implications of their use.

Ala'a Shehabi - Bahrain Watch. Ala'a is an academic and activist who has been a firsthand witness to the often deadly use of tear gas in Bahrain to repress the pro-democracy movement. With Bahrain Watch she's also worked to document its misuse and campaigned to prevent further exports of tear gas to Bahrain.

In this talk, Mathai will cover some of the background in which computing grew in India, highlighting the factors that led to the success of the software services industry and how this happened largely independently of the policies of the government. Today, computing has entered almost every part of life in India, urban and rural, and has helped to create millions of jobs. Yet computer science, like other sciences in India, has not grown and shown the same kind of achievements. The talk will be interspersed with his personal experiences from the 1960s to the present.

Europe Day

Tuesday 5 May, 11am-4pm, Library of Birmingham

The Europe Direct Information Centre Birmingham in partnership with The Library of Birmingham would like to invite you to Europe Day on 5th May 2015.

Europe Day commemorates 9 May 1950, when the then French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman presented his proposal on the creation of an organised Europe, to help maintain peaceful relations between European countries. This proposal, known as the ‘Schuman declaration’, is considered to be the act that created what is now the European Union.

Aimed at citizens and businesses within the Midlands, this event will showcase how best to access support and advice on European matters.

School of Jewellery 125th Anniversary Lecture Series

Various dates between February - March 2015, School of Jewellery

A series of short talks by staff, postgraduate researchers and friends as part of the 125th Anniversary of the School of Jewellery.

Writing the Ethical Life: Theatrical Biography and the Case of Thomas Betterton

What do concepts drawn from philosophical ethics have to tell us about contemporary theatre history? In this talk, based on an essay in a forthcoming collection for Palgrave called ‘Ethics and Evidence in Theatre History’, David Roberts examines the limits placed by some theatre historians upon a rich understanding of theatrical lives and living. The test case is the Restoration actor Thomas Betterton, the subject of David’s 2010 biography for Cambridge University Press.

Type Talks: Ewan Clayton

12 March 2015, 5.30pm, P350 lecture theatre, City Centre Campus

Ewan Clayton is Professor in Design at the University of Sunderland where he co-directs their International Calligraphy Research Centre. In 2013 he was named Craft Champion of the year for his contribution to educating others in the Crafts in the first National Craft Skills Awards. He is a Trustee of the Crafts Study Centre, Britain's University Museum for contemporary craft. He was awarded an MBE in the 2014 New Year's Honours List.

Black Women and Popular Culture: Conformity, Contradiction or Consensus?

11 March 2015, 1pm, Edge 320, City North Campus

This presentation will examine the complex realities of young Black British women's interaction and consumption of 'black' popular cultural discourses (Hip Hop and Dancehall).

Through the interpretation of the experiences of the young women, the varied intersections of being young, black, female and British come into play.

The research aims to provide a unique platform to hear the voices of the young women, who are often ignored or silenced through racist and sexist stereotypes of black womanhood. The concepts of 'agency' (individual and collective), 'negotiation' and 'resistance' of dominant discourses are explored, as the young women act to define and (re) define their 'sense of self' in relation to 'black' popular cultures.

This even is free to attend, all staff and students welcome.

Type Talks: Gordon Young

12 Feb 2015, 5.30pm, Parkside 350 lecture theatre, City Centre Campus

Words and stuff

Gordon Young is one of the UK's leading artists in the field of public art. With over 20 years experience he has created projects as diverse as a series of 20m sculptural/climbing walls in Blackpool, a forest of typographic trees in Crawley Library, a Wall of Wishes in a Bristol school, and a cursing stone in Carlisle. Gordon's latest and most ambitious project to date is the Comedy Carpet, an 1,880m² granite typographical pavement made up of jokes, songs and catchphrases of comedians and writers which will be permanently installed on the new promenade in front of Blackpool Tower.

Type Talks: Sarah Hyndman

Thinking outside the font

Typefaces are both functional and evocative. They trigger memories, evoke associations and prompt multi sensory responses. Sarah reviewed how type is 'hidden in plain sight'. She shared projects by a range of people which reveal the typeface considered most 'believable' that type can make food more enjoyable and which typefaces look sweet or bitter.

Public debates about ‘the sexualisation of culture’, along with some academic accounts - suggest a shifting relationship between pornography and popular culture in which porn is seen to be spilling out of the pornosphere into other more mainstream cultural forms. How useful is this as a way of thinking about the relationship between contemporary porn and popular culture? What can academics in Media and Cultural Studies contribute to the debate?

Clarissa will present: Porn Studies and Media Attention

In the context of the upcoming REF exercise, academics are increasingly asked to demonstrate how their research has impact outside of the academy, and speaking to the media is one way of getting research messages across to broader audiences. Unfortunately what ensues is not easy to predict or control! Academic journals don’t usually grab popular media attention. However the press release announcing the launch of Porn Studies attracted a great deal of interest across the media in Summer 2013. While the news generated many positive responses, others suggested that for many the study of sexually explicit media remains a pointless, comical or distasteful task. In this paper I explore the difficulties of debating pornography in public.

School of Law Event - Judicial Recusal: 21st-Century Challenges

26 September 2014, 4.30pm-8.30pm, Lecture Theatre, Parkside Building

Judicial recusal is the principle that judges must disqualify themselves from participating in proceedings if they decide that it is not appropriate for them to hear a case. In Blackstone’s time judges were only required to recuse themselves in cases of actual bias. Subsequently there has been a tendency to widen this to include apparent bias – a doctrine of appearances. A recent series of high profile recusal cases has come before courts across the world in which:

a Justice of the Supreme Court of New Zealand was forced to resign his office

the Supreme Court of the United States implicitly reprimanded a State Supreme Court Justice for his failure to recuse

in the UK, Lord Hoffmann’s failure to recuse in In Re Pinochet resulted in the case having to be reheard.

This timely seminar brings together a pre-eminent panel of serving and former judges from Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States to discuss problems of recusal, the reasons for its recent rise insignificance and to identify unresolved issues. They will also submit papers for publication by The Modern Law Review.

Creative Citizens: The Conference

Thursday 18 and Friday 19 September 2014, Royal College of Art, London

This conference is the climax of a 30-month multidisciplinary research project, Media Community and the Creative Citizen. The Creative Citizens Conference brings together speakers from all over the world to dig deep into acts of everyday creativity. The event focuses on the ways that digital communications can drive and nurture creativity in communities.

Zero Carbon Buildings Today and in the Future 2014

In the world in which there are increasing risks from global warming, overpopulation and diminishing conventional energy resources, buildings and settlements with net zero carbon dioxide emissions are seen as one of the ways forward in putting the planet back into balance and setting it on a sustainable trajectory.

This conference was held at the new Parkside Building on the University's City Centre Campus, the home of Birmingham School of Architecture.

Twice upon a time: magic, alchemy and the transubstantiation of the senses

26-27 June 2014, Centre for Fine Art Research, Margaret Street Campus

The Centre for Fine Art Research (CFAR) and the Research Centre for Creative Making (S.T.U.F.F.) based at the Birmingham Institute of Art and Design (BIAD), have joined forces to welcome a mixture of papers, performances and exhibition installations that respond to magical and alchemical practices, in all their forms.

These include but are not limited to the origins of alchemy and its contemporary relevance in science, magical performance, illusion, automata, the sensory in artificial intelligence and radical thinking in relation to concepts of time.

BIAD Professorial Inaugural Lecture - Lubo Jankovic

In this lecture Professor Ljubomir Jankovic talks about a journey through different disciplines and explains how taking inspiration and ideas from seemingly unrelated disciplines helped him to solve hard problems in other disciplines. In his journey he connects the dots between emergence in nature, complexity science, computer science, engineering, building science and architecture and explains how this informed his research into designing zero carbon buildings.